


The Best Defense

by MidKnight2501



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Bees, F/M, M/M, Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidKnight2501/pseuds/MidKnight2501
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is a good offense. </p>
<p>Jupiter figures some shit out and makes a move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Defense

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters/100 million dollar movie/actors/costumes. 
> 
> Also I wrote this in one sitting in like two hours and only spellchecked it. It's late. I'll recheck it tomorrow or something. Let me know if you see something glaring.

Kiza goes to summer camp and Caine makes these sad faces when he's mumbling about how lonely Stinger must be. They see him sometimes, when the Marshall has to come to Chicago to bring her news about the Universe. He's not a stranger and she's not really mad about the betrayal. Kiza is a lovely girl, Jupiter sees that, and she knows what she was willing to give up to save her own family. That doesn't mean there isn't worry in the back of Stinger's eyes when they pull up in Jupiter's car in front of his house that is more bee hive than siding and two by fours. 

“You didn't have to come.” Stinger says, by way of welcome, still nervous in a way even as he ducks his head to her. 

Jupiter shrugs and shuts the car door. Caine busies himself around the back of the car, getting their bags- all the way in the car he'd looked secretly thrilled to death, kept trying to hide it by glowering at the other cars on the road, but she kept seeing him sneak smiles. “We're practically neighbors.” She jokes, and watches the corner of Stinger's mouth kick up a bit. She stretches from the long ride and catches him looking. Stinger looks away quickly and Caine slams the trunk, slinging their bags over his shoulder. Caine punches Stinger in the arm as he skirts around him on the path to the door and Stinger swings after him, but misses. Caine growls at him, teasing and hops up the stairs quickly. Jupiter watches Stinger watch him go in the door and chews her lip. “I'm sure Kiza is fine.” She says, stepping closer to the Marshall and watching his shoulders tense, noticing her. 

The bees have started to notice too, winging in a lazy helix around her. Stinger watches the bees and reaches out a hand to them- a few land and crawl across his hand, but leave with a flash of crystal wings. 

“She always wanted to do this surf camp.” He says, and ducks his head. Jupiter paid for it from her billions of space dollars. She's not really sure how the conversion works. She let Stinger handle that for her. 

“She's better. I'm sure she'll have a blast.” Jupiter tells him and he ducks his head again, bashful maybe, or maybe bowing to her a bit. 

“Where should I put our packs?” Caine shouts from inside, voice carrying dimly. Stinger snorts and starts for the door, shaking his head. She follows and the bees follow her- Jupiter stops at the porch and looks up at them.

“What about the bees?” She asks, when Stinger looks back from holding the screen door. His eyes flicker over her and over the bees. He shrugs, still holding the door. 

“It's their house too.” He points out.  
~~

They grill out for dinner. Apparently it's normal space food, or normal enough for two soldiers. Caine is eating chicken drowned in barbeque sauce- he's had like two legs and two breasts already and he's still going strong- and it's all over his face and hands. He eats like an animal, she wishes she didn't find it cute. Stinger is trying to be more civilized about it and kinda failing. The men are competing over who can eat the most and Jupiter gnaws on roasted corn and laughs to herself, watching them elbow each other, feet kicking under the table. It's like two kids or best bros or something. It's cute. 

She sips on the honey vodka concoction that Stinger makes in the basement and Caine grins at her across the scarred wooden kitchen table. 

“You like it?” Stinger asks, suddenly, and she looks up from smiling back at her boyfriend. He nods to the glass and she nods, sipping again. It's got a bit of a kick but goes down well. Stinger reaches for the mason jar he's been pouring from and refills their glasses- he and Caine have had more than her, but seem to feel it less. Figures. 

“It's great. I can't believe you make it yourself.” She says and Caine turns his big thrilled puppy-dog eyes on Stinger. 

“You should have seen the stuff he used to make back in our old ship.” Caine picks up his glass, swirling it around a little before knocking it back in one go. Jupiter feels her eyes getting wide watching him, and Stinger pours again. “It was deadly.” She feels her eyebrows go up. It's not like what they're drinking is nothing. At least not to her. 

“That was back in the past.” Stinger says, suddenly awkward. He rubs at his face with a paper napkin from the table, suddenly very busy with himself, eyes darting about a bit. “A long time ago.” He gives Caine a look, which Caine seems to totally miss considering he just keeps on smiling wide. 

“It was fantastic.” Caine only takes a napkin when Stinger forces him to, and puts it down in his lap. Jupiter giggles. “He'd age it in this spare- what was it? A water tank?” He looks to Stinger and Stinger hands him another napkin. “Portal hopping had this effect on aging alcohol, there's a whole science behind it-” Caine shakes his head and almost runs a hand through his hair. Stinger grabs him by the wrist and starts cleaning his hand like he's a child. Caine seems to only just notice that he's got sauce up to the wrists and looks embarrassed, which is sort of adorable on him. Really everything is, even the barbeque sauce. Caine gets some napkins and gets to work, though he doesn’t take his hand back from Stinger. “We'd come back from battle, hit the showers on the ship, and he had a bottle always ready to go in our quarters- once you could wash it all away in the showers, then you could wash it away in your mind.” 

Caine keeps talking, describing the booze, but Stinger is frozen stiff and he's looking at Jupiter with more than a bit of panic. It takes her a second to figure out why. 

She puts down her corn on the cob in shock. Well. Not shock. Maybe shock. 

Caine starts licking the remaining barbeque sauce off his fingers, sucking two of them at a time into his mouth and she watches him mindlessly do it before looking back to Stinger who looks like he's about to die of embarrassment. 

“I uh. Need to.” Jupiter says and gets up from the table. She doesn't mean to bang the screen door but she does. It's cool outside, a shock after the close warmth of the house and she sucks in a deep breath. The bees make a noise in the walls and scurry out to fly around her, humming softly, comfortingly. 

It's not like she didn't have boyfriends before Caine Wise. With a body like he's got she doesn't know why she didn't consider someone else took it for a turn around the block before she got there. It's not even the fact it's Stinger. Well. Maybe it's the fact he's the only other alien they know. 

The screen door bumps shut again and after a moment Caine butts up against her shoulder, looking for physical affirmation she's not mad at him. She's seen it before and she reaches up to ruffle his hair when he ducks his head against her, scritching behind his ear a moment. 

“You're mad.” He says, matter of factly. 

They're standing in front of the porch and Jupiter suddenly remembers that Kiza said the two men were performing a mating display. She snorts in spite of herself. 

“No. Not- I don't know.” Jupiter admits. He ducks his forehead against her shoulder, making a worried sound in his throat. 

“It was a long time ago.” Caine mutters. 

“That's not-” Jupiter turns and pushes him up, forcing him to make eye contact. She studies his face in the moonlight, how strong it is, but how much his nature makes him want a pack, reassurance, her approval. “I'm not mad at you.” Caine blinks slowly. “I'm just- surprised?” She tries and his face closes down again. 

“It's not a big deal up there like it is here.” He says softly and Jupiter pushes his face up again, holding both sides of his face. 

“I don't care about that.” Jupiter snaps, a little too much anger in her voice and she watches his shoulders duck in. “Caine, babe, you had a life before we met. I'm not jealous or mad or angry or anything. What would you do if you met one of my exes?” Jupiter asks and he shrugs, looking aside. 

“I'd tear them into little pieces.” He says with a bit of fang. Jupiter shakes his head a little with her hands, smiling in spite of herself. “You said you had bad taste in men.” Caine defends himself. She leans up to press her forehead to his, then kisses him briefly. His hands engulf her waist. 

“If you two were a thing, it's fine, it was before us.” Jupiter tells him and she feels him shiver a little, and his arms tighten around her. The door bumps open again and Jupiter looks back at Stinger- who's backlit from inside but she can see even from here how tight his shoulders are. He just stands there and Jupiter offers him a smile, hoping he can see it in the dark.  
~~

An hour later they're all on the couch, or the floor by the couch, in front of the only fan Stinger has that works. The barbeque is all put away, everyone working silently and nervously in the kitchen to kill off the nerves when they came back inside. They're working their way through the honey drink and the boys are trying to out do each other describing spectacles in space, places Jupiter could be if she'd only leave Earth, even if only for a little bit. Apparently there actually is a place that looks like in Avatar, with the flying rocks and stuff, and that's where the hover boots came from. 

Stinger pours another round, spilling a little and licking it from his wrist. Jupiter watches, then watches Caine watching. She sprawls back on the couch, like the Queen she is, and rubs the arch of her right foot against the tattoo gracing Caine's arm. He shivers, eyes flickering to her, then back to his glass. 

“Tell her about the gold pyramids on the ice planet.” Stinger says, egging Caine on. “The one with the statues.” 

Caine shrugs, rubbing against her knee, and playing with his glass. It's a quarter full and Jupiter tries to remember how many they've had- she's working on her second, but it feels more like a fourth. She picks at his tight shirt with her toes, tickling him and watching him squirm. There's a blush up the back of his neck. 

“What about that place with the clear oceans, like the Caribbean, you know but with the water people?” Caine asks, grinning. She pictures him on the beach and likes it. Stinger chuckles, leaning an elbow on the sofa by her shoulders. “They were like mermaids- Earth mermaids, you know?” 

“I remember.” Stinger chimes in, nursing his drink. “They wanted to pay us in jewels for killing those serpents the next planet over had illegally transfer to their ocean and we didn't know the exchange rate right then. We had to stay in that hut on the beach for two days, trying to get a signal home to calculate their worth.” Stinger watches Caine knock back his drink, and Jupiter pushes herself up on her elbow, finishing her own drink. She holds it out, but when Stinger looks surprised she wants another she shakes her head and he takes the empty. 

Jupiter keeps her eyes on Stinger, less than a foot away. “Caine?”

“Yes?” He asks and she digs her toes into his side, feeling and hearing him squirm. “Your Majesty?” He corrects quickly and she grins. Stinger looks like he's in a bit of pain. 

“Kiss me.” Jupiter orders. She's drunk, she knows it, but she doesn't care right now. She's the Queen of the Universe, she can do whatever the hell she wants. Caine leans up on the couch and Stinger leans back- for a moment Caine fills up her whole view and she closes her eyes, lets him pet her face, feels him nibble at her lips before she sucks in a breath and leans up to capture his lips, and it gets hot and messy. One of them makes a noise, a soft noise, something vulnerable and it makes her toes curl against the old sofa. She touches his throat and feels his pulse hammering, slides her hand down to where his heart- does he have a heart- is throbbing, then lower, to where she can feel his abs through the fabric of his shirt. Caine's teeth set against her lip and he shudders back, resting his forehead against her's, gasping. 

Jupiter pushes him up and away, sees Stinger at the door, looking back, resigned. Defeated, Still watching though. 

“Caine.” Jupiter says and she feels him twitch against her hand. 

“Your Majesty?” He asks without having to be reminded. It makes her guts clench to hear him say it in bed, and this is close enough. 

“I want to see you kiss Stinger.” She orders and feels him tense up. Stinger is frozen in the door, even as Caine stands, nervous but into it. Caine tugs on his shirt and scrubs his hands against his pants before he stalks over. Stinger is so shocked he doesn't do anything, even look away from Jupiter before Caine gets to him and turns him, pushes him into the door frame. Stinger grunts and pushes at Caine, but Caine boxes him in, one hand on his hip and the other on his jaw. Jupiter leans up on her elbow on the couch, dry mouthed, and then Caine bites at Stinger's mouth- there's not another word for how they're kissing. It's like the fight in the yard. One of them is growling, and Stinger grabs a handful of ass. He's got big hands, now that she's seeing them at this angle.  
~~

It's weird in the morning. 

Weird because she wakes up in the sunny patch in the bed and the bees are making tessellations on the ceiling. Jupiter has a bit of a headache and what feels like miles of stubble burn. She stretches naked against the sheets in Stinger's big bed and wonders where the boys went. Maybe they're wrestling in the yard. 

It's less weird when she wakes up later to Stinger bringing her coffee- made just the way she likes it- and Caine following with toast with peanut butter and honey. She supposes she can live with breakfast in bed from her boyfriend and his ex. Stinger still looks vaguely anxious, but it fades when she takes the coffee from his hands and pulls him down for a kiss. He's reverent with her and a bit reserved. She takes the toast and Caine kisses her like he's ready for round four. She pushes him back with a grin after a bit and wiggles her toes in his direction, where they peep out from under the sheet. 

The two of them decide to fight over who gives the better foot rub rather than wrestle and Jupiter decides the Space Queen business is a pretty good one to be in.

**Author's Note:**

> I loved it. I loved every freaking second. All those critics are wrong. 
> 
> Also I cracked up 3000% when Kiza called the man fight a mating display. I'm never going to not hear that now when two guys are wrestling in front of a girl. 
> 
> Also most of the way through I was like oh right they got their wings back but by then everyone was on the sofa and I didn't want to mentally work out three way sofa make outs and bedroom action when two of the three people have robotic wings. I'm going with the logic of they can take the wings off? I'm sure some places don't have the halls for it.


End file.
